


Somnamator

by j_quadrifrons



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (I promise I didn't reuse too much dialogue), Compulsion, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Incredibly Self-Indulgent, M/M, Manipulation, but elias is into it, rewriting history to suit one's own purposes, that thing where jon finally compels elias and it's stronger than he was ready for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 00:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20684171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: Jon has three kinds of dreams: ordinary nightmares, the Archivist's nightmares, and...these. Memories, but not. They must be coming from somewhere.





	Somnamator

**Author's Note:**

> This has absolutely no redeeming qualities but I woke up one morning and wanted to write it, so here we are. Bits of dialogue taken from episodes 40, 67, 92, and 102. (Yes, that's right, the last time Jon and Elias spoke in private was in episode 102. Please, Mr. Sims, my crops are dying.)

"Jon, as your boss, I'm telling you to go home."

This isn't one of those nightmares; it doesn't have that terribly vivid resonance of other people's terror or the unbearable pressure of the Eye. It's just a dream, an echo of a memory, of a terrible, exhausted time when he could still be hurt and could still demand answers without knowing they would be given to him. He misses it so much it's hardly a nightmare at all, really.

But it isn't quite a memory either; instead of sitting opposite him, the desk between them, Elias has his chair pulled up right next to Jon's. His brow is furrowed in a familiar expression of concern and he holds Jon's hands gently in his own, thumbs stroking over the bandages wrapped around his knuckles. _Are you holding my hand as my boss, then?_ Jon thinks, but it's a dream, so the words that come out of his mouth are, "I'm fine." It sounds more resigned than he remembers it being. Surely he hadn't sounded so thoroughly ruined at the time?

Elias gives him a fond look, squeezes his hands very gently. Even in the dream the wounds ache, sharp and sudden, but Jon doesn't pull away. "You need rest," he says, and drops one of Jon's hands to brush away a strand of hair that has slipped between his glasses and his face.

Jon shakes his head and his hair falls in his face again. "It's just pain," he says quietly, but there's no fight in it, no strength at all.

"Very well." Elias leans in and presses a kiss to Jon's temple, where his hair is just beginning to turn grey. Jon wakes up in a tangle of sheets, confused and unsettled, and it takes him several minutes to remember where he is.

* * *

It's weeks before the next dream, and Jon has almost forgotten about the first entirely until he's dropped again into a memory-that-isn't. In this one his fists are clenched in frustration and Elias is staring him down over folded arms and he knows immediately what they're arguing about. "So you're just going to leave it," he snaps, and Elias sighs, wearing his best put-upon administrator face.

"I think that's for the best," he says, putting a comforting hand on Jon's shoulder, and that's not right, is it? He can't remember, suddenly, it seems such a natural gesture. Jon leans into it ever so slightly and Elias's grip shifts from his shoulder to the curve of his neck. Jon's eyes have closed and he doesn't remember letting it happen.

"Please, Elias," he says helplessly. "I need to know. I can't - I need to know. Or you can find a new Archivist. "

Elias sighs again, and Jon is braced for rejection, but instead Elias cups his hand around the back of Jon's skull and draws him close. "Don't be dramatic," he says fondly, "you know how difficult it would be to replace you." His grip shifts again on the back of Jon's neck and he wakes up with the ghost of a kiss on his lips that he can't remember happening.

* * *

There's a flavor to these dreams that's subtly different from Beholding's nightmares or the more mundane products of his subconscious; Jon thinks he's starting to learn to identify it. Or it could just be that he's dreaming now that Elias has him pressed up against the wall in his office, the heat of his body a sharp distraction from the pain in his throat, his lungs, his right hand. Elias's hands on the wall cage him in but the only place they touch is where his knee rests on the outside of Jon's thigh. "What do you want?" Jon asks, too breathy to be snappish.

Elias smiles, slow and content. "To offer some congratulations. You're doing a lot better than I expected." He doesn't move, he hasn't moved, so why does it feel like the space between them keeps shrinking? Jon fights the urge to squirm; there's nowhere to go.

"I'm not getting any answers out of this, am I?"

"No. Not from me." And now Elias has moved closer; the end of the sentence is whispered against the fragile skin of Jon's throat. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, doesn't know how they wound up wrapped around Elias's shoulders. "There are some things you must discover on your own."

It's a dream, he shouldn't be able to feel the constriction in his lungs as he fights to take a steady breath. And dream or no, Elias's lips on his jaw shouldn't make him shake. At least he knows his lines for this one; Jon can remember every detail of this conversation in brutal clarity. "I never chose this."

Elias laughs silently, his breath hot in Jon's ear. "You never wanted this, no. But you absolutely did choose it." His fingers are tangled in Jon's hair now, gently caressing the curve of his skull. When Jon wakes, the broken end of that conversation echoes in his head all day:

_Am I still human?_

_Your will is still your own, mostly._

* * *

Jon has Elias backed up against the wall this time, a kind of physical intimidation he's never dared in waking life, not caging him in but merely cutting off all his avenues of escape. "I understand you're upset," Elias is saying, and if his eyes are wide and his breath coming fast then Jon can tell himself it's fear.

And if his own heart is pounding in his ears, he can tell himself it's anger. "A month, Elias." He moves forward half a step; Elias's hands come up in a defensive gesture and there's nowhere for them to go but on Jon's chest, where they rest lightly, hot and distracting. "And you did, what. Nothing?"

Elias actually breaks eye contact, though only for a moment. His fingers curl slightly in Jon's shirt. "I do regret..." He swallows the end of his sentence, steadies his gaze again. Elias is only about an inch taller than him, Jon realizes; it seems wrong somehow. There should be more of him.

What comes next? Jon can't remember, and the dream doesn't put words in his mouth like it usually does. He's just watching Elias's mouth, waiting for him to finish his sentence, knowing that he won't. There's nothing to finish because he didn't say it, and if this is a dream then there's nothing to it but his own memory and his subconscious churning through the predatory way Elias tends to look at him, and --

And then he's shoving closer, violent with anger, crashing their mouths together harshly enough that his lip stings and he tastes blood. Elias smiles against his lips, and _damn_ him is there nothing Jon can do that doesn't play directly into his hands? Hands which have slipped around Jon's neck, curled possessively in his hair; in his anger all he can do is push closer, biting at Elias's mouth, and Elias gasps and bites back. Jon wakes gasping for breath, still shaking.

* * *

Jon waited for visiting hours, which was a restraint that Elias found frankly impressive, although it was perhaps down to the fact that unlike simple hunger, rage wasn't yet enough to get him there that quickly. He did have a quiet but intense conversation with the prison guard, a former sectioned officer, featuring just enough questions to remind him why the Magnus Institute was still a name to conjure fear. It was enough to get him a private room with Elias stood on his own two feet instead of a table in the visitor's room under the watchful eye of guards and cameras. There were cameras in here, of course, and they watched everything, but they told only what Elias wanted them to tell.

The rage returned when the door closed, hot and impatient. Elias had missed it badly; it looked good on him. Jon barely bothered to wait for the key in the lock before he snarled out his question: "What are you doing to me?"

Elias meant to say, "Whatever do you mean, Jon?" or possibly, "In what context?" but the compulsion was not what he expected it to be. It didn't tingle, it rushed through him like a violent electric shock, sending his heart stuttering wildly and buzzing under his skin, painful and powerfully arousing. When he spoke the answer was dragged from behind his teeth: "I'm helping you grow stronger, Jon."

Jon stared at him for a moment, fists clenched, then he was on him with a speed Elias did not anticipate. Not the intimate clash of last night's carefully retuned memory, but a rough hand on his shoulder and the other fisted at his collar, shoving him against the wall. Elias gasped anyway, but if it drew any reaction from Jon he lost it in the dizzying crack of his skull against the brickwork.

"_Now_ you decide to help?" Jon hissed, and the question was rhetorical but it crackled in the air anyway. The hand at Elias's throat would cut off his air supply with only a little more pressure, but in this position Jon was pressed up against his side, warm and trembling, and it was enough to give Elias something to ground himself with. "That's not all it is, is it?"

This time he was prepared for it, and there was no particular reason to dissemble any more, but the question still pulled at his guts like he'd been hooked on a line. "No," he said, breathless, eyes boring into Jon's. "But it does seem to be working."

At that Jon seemed to notice at last how close they were, and he dropped his hands and stepped back, just a little farther away than normal conversational space. "I don't need your help," he spat out, tense and restrained again. "I don't want --" His Archivists' face twisted through a fascinating array of emotions, hunger not least among them, before settling again on anger. "You disgust me," he said slowly and clearly. "I will find a way to stop whatever this is. And I look forward to never seeing you again." He turned on his heel and banged on the door to summon the guard.

Propped up against the wall (the only thing, he could admit privately to himself, that had allowed him to keep his feet), Elias tried to breathe deeply enough that it didn't seem like he was panting for air. It certainly did seem to be true that Jon didn't need any help augmenting his strength. As for the rest, if he put his mind to it, he could most likely believe it to be a lie.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come yell about TMA with me, I have too many feelings  
[@j_quadrifrons](https://twitter.com/j_quadrifrons), [backofthebookshelf](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com)


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